


Swan Song

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: A.I. Marco, Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Space, Character Death, Existential Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Interstellar Fighter Pilot Jean, Retrospective, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2229417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I used to think it was beautiful, if you can believe that."</p><p>Left the only surviving member of Squad 19 of the Interstellar Defense Force Star Fighter Division, their leader Jean Kirschtein is left adrift. In a malfunctioning ship with all comm lines down the power is slowly dying after the catastrophic failure of their first combat mission. With no hope of rescue and the life support losing power, he asks the ship's AI―the Mechanical Artificial Reconnaissance Calibrated Operations, or the M.A.R.C.O.―to transfer the last audio data recorded from his dead squadmates' star fighters as he waits for the air to run out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> My SciFi literature class is really getting in my head I guess. My professor was telling us about one of Bradbury's short stories and this idea happened and it demanded to be written. I also thought about Battlestar Galactica and a really heavy scene from the Across the Universe trilogy by Beth Revis a lot while writing this.
> 
> [This](https://soundcloud.com/claud123/sunshine-soundtrack-john) was also my writing song of choice~
> 
> Thanks also to Grey and Shax for listening to me blab about this for the past week, for helping me when I got stuck thinking up everyone's call signs, and for reading over it before I posted it.

"How're those transfers coming?" I ask lazily. Bent forward over the control panel of my star fighter, my chin rests on my crossed arms. I gaze listlessly out the front window, eyes unfocused. The lights of the distant stars blur together, pinpricks of light smearing into hazy balls against the blackness of space.

A few beeps echo around the small cockpit before the AI's voice reports to me, tinny and metallic.

"The last existing audio data from Ship 4 and Ship 8 are processing at 43% and 59% respectively. The rest are currently in the calibrations stages. Estimated 6 hours until all data completely transferred to this ship's hard drive at low priority setting. Would you like me to continue?"

I stare out the windshield, the lights of my control panel all dark and unresponsive. The only light bathing the small cockpit is now the light of the intercom flashing above the speaker and the spattering of distant stars like freckles upon the universe.

I used to think it was beautiful, if you can believe that.

Even through the thick, sealed windows of the settlement on the western side of Kepler-186f, I thought it was beautiful.

When you spend your childhood behind chrome air locked doors, never setting foot on the planet on which you were born, the black sky above you starts to look like opportunity.

When you spend the latter part of your adolescence with a lurking, paralyzing fear that the native life will one day again emerge from the other side of the planet and decimate your home like they did with Sector S that fateful day, the stars far beyond Kepler-186f start to look like hope.

You learn to yearn for somewhere other, somewhere safe.

Somewhere to build a life for yourself.

In the Kepler system, the only way to chase that dream, to follow those hopes of safety and peace out beyond the horizon of this planet is to become a pilot with the Interstellar Defense Forces. And if you work your hardest, study your hardest, and above all, are very lucky, you might get promoted and transferred to another system. A safer one.

That's the dream of a lot of the cadets who enlist from hostile planets.

It was my dream, anyway.

"Lieutenant Kirschtein?"

"Huh?"

"I asked if you would like me to continue processing the transmissions?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," I reply distractedly.

"I should remind you that processing this data will use 20% of the remaining power cells. That translates to 2 additional hours of life support if I terminate the command and divert processing power. Would you like me to continue?

The AI speaks with the formality and synthesized tonal fluctuations of any computer that comes in the IDF's fighters. But each squad gets their own specialized program upon initiation and ours, the Mechanized Artificial Reconnaissance Calibrated Operations (or the M.A.R.C.O as we all call him), sounds male, voice high and pleasant.

The first time I'd climbed into a star fighter, hands grazing reverently over the throttle, that was the first voice that had greeted me. The voice that had smoothly, encouragingly, and confidently guided me and my trainee squad through flight lessons and training exercises. The one who had suggested after that first flight that I be appointed squad leader and attested to my "potential."

Figures my last time in this ship, his will be the last I'll hear too.

"Yeah. Keep going."

Two extra hours.

I straighten up to then immediately slouch backward into the seat, the darkness of the cockpit seeming to press in around me.

"May I ask why?" The question is sudden and hesitant from the speakers on the ceiling.

"Why what?"

"Why divert energy to transmissions sent by the other ships?"

I sigh.

"Well, after they hit my ship and we started drifting I asked if you had any data from the other ships."

"You did," M.A.R.C.O. replies. "And I told you there were no remaining intact star fighters besides yours, Lieutenant. I also said I had managed to begin transferring log data to the squad leader's ship according to protocol. Before the connection cut out, I was able to begin transferring approximately the last two minutes of audio from your squad mates before their fighters-"

"I was there, I heard you!" I snap harshly, not wanting to hear him reduce the brutal deaths of my squad mates―my friends―to those clinical, formal phrases he uses. "I- I want to hear their last words. If I can. I want to know what happened back there."

"To absolve guilt? Closure?"

I stare at the small green light above the intercom before flicking my eyes away and muttering.

"Because what else do I have to do while I wait for the air to run out?"

 

***

 

"Data from Ship 4 has finished transferring." The words, accompanied by a series of high, chiming beeps make me sit up from my slouching curve into my seat. "The remaining are still in transit. Lieutenant, would you like to wait until all the data is downloaded or listen as they finish?"

Ship 4.

I swallow, hard, and it feels like I have a glob of engine grease in my throat, tacky and sludgy and vile and _wrong_.

"Yeah." My voice rasps on the way out and I clear it before continuing. "I'll listen."

A string of beeping cascades around me before M.A.R.C.O.'s voice comes again.

"4th of September, Year 3875. Last audio data from Ship 4 of Squad 19, ISF Kepler Star Fighter Division. Pilot Officer Connie Springer. Call sign: Ragako. 21:05."

There is burst of static and then I hear him, crackly and distorted but unmistakably Connie, over the speakers.

" _M.A.R.C.O., can you pull up a flight plan? I'm having a hard time seeing through all the debris here!"_ His voice sounds strained, as if bit out through gritted teeth.

" _There is no available flight path at the moment to carry out our objective, Officer Springer._ "

" _Dammit!"_ His frustrated groan grates over the speakers. _"Where's the rest of the squad?"_ I hear a faint click. _"Open transmission: This is Ragaoko. Has anyone seen Ice Queen? I lost sight of her a while back. Beanpole too."_

Doubly muffled by static, Connie receives a reply, voice female, bright and chipper.

" _Come in, Ragako, this is Tatertot! Do you copy?"_

_"I copy, Tatertot."_

_"I just got out of a tight scrape, but I'm heading back. I lost both of 'em too. Thought I saw Firecracker with them, though, so I wouldn't be too worried._ " Connie barks a laugh.

" _More reason to be worried. Hey, Tatertot, be careful coming back in, it's pretty-"_

A giant rumble, and a shout of surprise from Connie.

 _"Shit! M-my wing. They- they hit my wing. Chariot! Chariot, this is Ragako, do you copy? I'm hit and I need backup, is there anyone you can spare? Come in, Chariot!_ "

My blood runs cold.

"M.A.R.C.O., why didn't you tell me he was trying to contact me?" I demand over the static of Connie's harried breaths.

"Pause audio," M.A.R.C.O states calmly, halting to sound reverberating through my cockpit down through the marrow of my bones before addressing my question. "I was unable to relay communications between your ships. As you recall, your fighter's communication was down."

"Wait, all this happened while my comm was down?"

I had been screaming into my headset, demanding locations and updates, banging on the wheel handles in frustration that I couldn't hear them, didn't know what was happening.

I had full fuel, full ammunition, I could have _helped_.

They were my _responsibility_.

"Yes. But I am not involved in normal communication processes. It is only delegated to me to handle transmission of audio data when the star fighter is no longer intact or the pilot is deceased, as is protocol."

I swallow again, brow furrowing as if in pain, and tell him to play it.

"Resume audio."

The rumble of the distant battle, the shrieking of guns and muffled booms of explosions are faint in the background.

" _Chairot,_ do you copy!? _I need help!_ " There's a loud bang as he slams the mouthpiece back into the holder. " _Dammit!"_ Connie hisses again. " _First fucking mission and it all goes to shit._ "

A deafening rattle tells me his star fighter is sharply veering.

" _Mayday, mayday, I'm spinning out, mayday!"_ His voice is raw and desperate and cracking as it goes quiet. It makes me clench my jaw. _"I'll was going to make them all proud, I was going to-_ "

The audio abruptly cuts off and I shut my eyes.

"End of audio," M.A.R.C.O. says solemnly.

 

***

 

"Hey, what do you know about Earth, M.A.R.C.O.?" I ask after a long while.

"Humanity's origin planet? I have quite a bit of data on it." I roll my eyes and let out a breath.

"You know my great grandmother was one of the last to leave, right? Way after the Great Fall."

"I did not know that," M.A.R.C.O. states.

"Yeah, she was born on Earth."

"You must know a lot about it then Lieutenant, being raised in a 4th generation Kepler household. More so than most anyway."

I scoff, kicking my feet up onto the dead dashboard, the unresponsive keys and knobs clicking hollowly under their weight.

"Funny. Everyone says that. I don't know much about the actual planet."

"Why not?" M.A.R.C.O. asks.

"According to my Nana and Mom, she spent her whole life trying to leave Earth. Never talked too much about it afterwards. From what she told us, I guess her family was one of that extremist Naturalist movement who refused to leave Earth and evacuate when everything went to shit. Never understood that. What's so special about one hunk of rock? How's it worth the life of your family?"

I sigh, uncrossing my ankles and taking my feet of the control panel.

"But anyway, apparently, she spent her whole life looking to find a way up and out. Grandma and my Mom would tell me stories about her. When she was fifteen, I guess she illegally commissioned a telescope―illegal since the Naturalists kinda took over the government after the U.N. pulled out, y'know, space travel was "rejecting God's gift of Earth" and such. Anyway, she would use it to sneak out and look at the sky for hours at night, dreaming of a life out here. She got it, obviously, since I exist. One of the last ones to get out before, well..."

"You are part of a unique history, Lieutenant."

"Was," I correct him tiredly. "But I guess it ran in my blood. Nana always said I was a lot like her. Always something to prove, always looking upward and out to faraway planets while hating the rock you're standing on. Lot of good it did me in the end."

"You hate living on Kepler-186f?" M.A.R.C.O. inquires.

"Hated," I correct him again. "There was no future there besides fear and inevitable war."

He doesn't respond. I lean forward, head buried in my arms now crossed again over the dead control panel, and whisper into the fabric of my flight suit.

"And now there's none at all, I guess, huh?"

 

***

 

Darkness.

Vast emptiness and open nothing.

I feel as if I'll be swallowed by it, like it is pressing in on me.

All that stands between me and the mighty infinity of the universe beyond is synthetic metal and plastic, a small little container so necessary to my survival, now drifting, my time slowly ticking away.

How tenuous we are. What fragile, specific beings we are.

Such a small range of temperature we can endure without our cell walls exploding or the liquid in them freezing. Such a small range of pressure we can endure without being folded into nothing or stretched apart atom by atom.

Such specific things we need. The exact right composition at the exact right temperature to make up water, the right balance of proteins and carbohydrates and fats or we cannot function.

And Oxygen. The right combination of bonded molecules in the right density or we will die.

So delicate.

And yet we have the tenacity to think this universe is ours.

After seeing my friend's ships blown to pieces in the vacuum of space, fighting to defend a tiny, tiny sliver of the infinite cosmos, I think it was a reminder of just how fragile we really are. That we play at ruling solar systems and galaxies, but really, we only think that because the forces of the universe let us, knowing full well that, in time, we―just as with all other things―will succumb to them.

Nothing but a tiny blip, a miniscule drop in the passing torrent of the river of time.

Yet there they are, still, outside my fighter, defying this―those pinpricks in the distance. Vibrant and burning with heavenly fury against the pressing, freezing void.

Stars I will never see, whose names I will never know, but continuing to burn so hotly and brightly, spitting their fire defiantly in the face of inevitable darkness.

"Data from Ships 8 has finished downloading. Ships 1, 3, and 5 are all currently at 32%. Ships 2, 6, 7, and 9 are experiencing difficulties and have been put on hold." The voice jerks me from my reverie like waking up knowing you've slept in and through something crucially important. The feeling seeps through me, the dread cold and acidic.

"On hold?"

"Yes, I am having trouble transferring the data intact," M.A.R.C.O. elaborates. I take a steadying breath, trying to push the creeping fear down, to keep it from taking root in me. "However, as I said, Ship 8's data is complete and Ships 1, 3, and 5 are currently processing."

"Play audio," I croak.

"4th of September, Year 3875. Last audio data from Ship 8 of Squad 19, ISF Kepler Star Fighter Division. Pilot Officer Sasha Braus. Call sign: Tatertot. 21:06."

The audio crackles to life in midsentence, Sasha's voice shrill over the speakers.

" _-ariot! Chariot, come in,_ please, _this is Tatertot! Ragako is down, I repeat, Ragako is_ down _!_ " Her voice is panicked and desperate and it grates over me, the sharp guilt raking like nails.

" _M.A.R.C.O.,_ _are the comm lines down?_ "

" _Chariot's communications are currently offline, yes._ "

" _Dammit!"_ Sasha curses. " _I'll try Control."_ There is a pause before she speaks again. " _Control, this is Tatertot of Squad 19, we have a plane down, I repeat, Ragako is down. I can't contact Chariot, our officer, his comm is offline._ "

" _Copy, Tatertot, this is Commander Nanaba. We're having birds down left and right over on the east front too, even with the Vice and Rear Admirals out in the air as well."_

_"What?!"_

_"I'm sorry, we can't spare anyone at the moment. Stand your ground, I repeat, the Fleet Admiral's orders are to-"_ The words dissolve into white noise and then to silence in Sasha's cockpit.

 _"All communications lines down," t_ he M.A.R.C.O. in the recording announces. _"I'm trying to reroute them, Officer Braus, but it seems like there is some interference."_

" _Dammit!"_ Sasha spits angrily, a bang as she hits her dashboard in frustration. Then, quietly, a gritted, quiet sob. " _Connie..."_

There is a moment or two of what sounds like her trying to steady her breathing, and I listen to the inhales and exhales of my friend I know is now no longer her, just drifting in pieces and parts through the silence of space.

" _Okay. Okay, Sasha, get it together, you have a job to do_."

Her fighter suddenly rumbles as she veers it back towards the battle, and just as suddenly a shriek peaks the speakers, glitching the sound wildly before it cuts out just as the first had.

"End of audio," M.A.R.C.O. says again.

I clap a hand over my mouth to smother the sob trying to choke its way free.

 

***

 

"Constellations?" he repeats curiously when I mention them mid conversation a while later.

"Yeah," I reply. "Since my great grandma's time, the obsession kinda got passed down. My Mom? She _loved_ the whole idea. Had star charts and shit all over the house growing up. Never knew why since they only work if you're on Earth." I laugh and it sounds hollow. "Kepler? Our star? Actually part of one, you know."

"The Northern Cross, yes. Also known as the "Cygnus the Swan,"" M.A.R.C.O. answers promptly and I give half a smile.

"That's the one. Do you know the story behind it?"

"There are many stories associated with Cygnus the Swan in my existing database."

"Well, know-it-all," I tease, "I only know the one my Mom used to tell me."

"Which one is that?"

"From the Greeks, of course."

"Most well known stories are." His reply holds a hint of playfulness so I just snort and flick off the intercom speaker without addressing his comment.

"Ok so, legend goes the sun god, Helios, had a son named Phaethon. Phaethon wanted to prove to the others he truly was the son of Helios and had an affinity with the sun, so he asked Helios if he could drive the sun chariot for a day, to make the sun rise over Greece. But, when the time came, Phaethon lost control of the reins, and Zeus, to prevent it crashing into the humans and stuff, shot it out of the sky with a thunderbolt so it fell straight down into a river. The river was called Eridanus―named after the home of the Babylonian god of the Abyss."

The lights seems to twinkle at me beyond the thick glass. M.A.R.C.O stays silent, listening, even though I'm sure he has this information in his database already.

"But Phaethon had a brother named Cygnus who, when he heard what happened, was devastated by the news. He spent days and days diving to the bottom of the river to get all of Phaethon's bones from the river bed so he could give him a proper funeral. In the end, the gods were so moved by Cygnus's love for his brother that they turned him into a swan and put him in the night's sky among the stars. And that's how the constellation came to be, apparently."

"Lieutenant." There is a hesitance to the tinny word that comes after a short silence. "Were you given your call sign in reference to that story?"

"Not that story, but Greek mythology, yeah. " _Chariot_ " after the one that pulled the sun across the sky. All symbolic and shit." I give a snort. "I guess everyone was a stupid, romantic kid when they enlisted. When I got assigned Squad Leader, I guess they figured I'd be the chariot pulling the sun, hope, whatever. Fitting, I guess. I had so much I felt like I had to prove." Sighing, I tilt my head back. "Even more fitting, now, considering where we are, it seems almost- almost poetic for it to end like this, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"First time I'm trying to pull the sun across the sky and everything ends up on fire with me crashing into the abyss." I feel like I am sinking, burning down through the fabric of my seat, through the metal and plastic of the hull, heavy and acidic.

"If you are speaking in metaphor, Lieutenant, the ship will not explode. As I told you in my initial diagnostic following the malfunction. The power cells simply cannot hold charge. They will die, as will the functions of the life support system, and you will simply run out of air."

"Thanks for that cheery reminder," I reply, sighing. I bite my lip in the silence that falls, looking up to the intercom speakers and the soft green light glowing there. "Hey. M.A.R.C.O.?"

"Yes?"

"You'll stop working too. Won't you?"

"Yes, I will," he replies.

"So, when the power cells die, you die?"

"Die?" He sounds a bit apprehensive and confused. "I am not an organic being..."

"Hh. You and your semantics," I scoff.

""Die" as you understand it is hard for me to process, I am sorry. If you mean "cease to function," then, yes, I will. When this ship runs out of power, so will the equipment powering my processes."

"But- You won't be _gone_ , will you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like you'll still exist somewhere, right?" I don't know why I'm chewing my lip, muscles tense as I lean forward.

""Me." This is another concept that is different to grasp as artificial intelligence, Lieutenant Kirschtein. I was backed up to the I.D.F.'s AI Database before this mission. The data of my consciousness as of the day we left the Kepler Space Station exists there. However, the data of the events and thought processes I have experienced since then―the "me" you are talking to now―will only exist on this ship's hard drive."

He says these words as fluidly and steadily as ever but I can almost hear something behind the words―something more, some complex confusion. It's as if there is something there he doesn't quite understand.

"So unless someone discovers the ship and reboots it for some reason...?" The question trails off, leaving the words hanging in the darkness of the cockpit.

"The version of "me" here and now will never be conscious again, no," he finishes decisively.

"No one will ever know we had this conversation." I feel like I can't breathe.

"There will be no record of it outside of this ship, no," M.A.R.C.O. affirms.

"It'll be like none of this happened."

"Are you referring to the popular English anecdote beginning "If a tree falls in a forest and there is-"?"

"Don't do the "trying to be funny" thing, please?" I interrupt.

"I was simply trying to lighten your spirits." His voice is lighter now, gone of all heavy, lurking sadness of a moment before.

"Why?"

"You seem... sad," M.A.R.C.O. replies, and the word sounds unsure as it floats through the ceilings' speakers.

"Great," I sigh, trying to mask the tightness winding in my chest. "Last one standing and I've got a damn computer comforting me."

When he speaks again after a moment, he is subdued, a bit forlorn.

"Lieutenant Kirschtein, may I ask you a question?" That makes me sit up in my seat straighter.

"Uh, sure. Shoot," I tell him, unsteady.

"Do you consider me an intelligent being?"

I pause.

"Well, you've kinda got "intelligence" in your name. AI and all."

"I apologize, I did not specify," he prefaces before trying again. "Do you consider me another intelligent being equal to yourself?"

"M.A.R.C.O., why are you asking me this?" I try to inquire but he persists.

"At the moment, do you consider yourself alone?"

"No? I guess I don't." There is no reply from the ceiling, only the distant ambient rumble of space pressing in on my little ship. "Is that the answer you wanted?"

"Does this fact bring you comfort?"

My brow furrows at the uncharacteristic reluctance to answer even such a simple question. Taken aback by his strange response, I consider.

"Yeah." The word comes out, breathy, insubstantial, dust in a ray of sun as I punch out an exhale.

"I am... glad to hear that." The voice is quiet, strangely relived sounding.

"Why?"

"Lieutenant, I have been the AI for your squad since it was first assembled. I was created specifically to guide them, and since you are- were their leader, even more specifically to guide you. The first day of my existence, my first memory, was the day I greeted you and synced with you during your first calibration flight."

"I was the first of our squad to take a flight outside the ship, yeah," I recall.

They'd briefed us, that first day, on the capabilities of the M.A.R.C.O. system, specifically designed for us, about the mind-blowing processing power, the laser sharp logistical calculations. But also, they had told us of the individual natures of AIs and their capacity for emotions as they evolved and learned from the squads they guided.

But I don't think I'd understood what that meant.

It meant that M.A.R.C.O was more than a computer or a disembodied voice in the walls of my ship. He was a thinking, understanding, sentient being, and that, although not completely the same as how I was, he was a feeling one too.

It meant that I had become so, so close to my squad mates, my friends over our tough, agonizing years of training, scraping through the worst, most difficult things together. And that M.A.R.C.O. was part of that too.

I blink and my eyes burn.

And I realize now, for the first time, the knowledge spinning in my head and sinking into my stomach like lead, heavy with the weight of a truth understood far, far too late, that M.A.R.C.O. _cares_ about us.

"It was also my first flight outside the ship," he adds, continuing on. "I had the data and the capability to guide a cadet in their flight training, but you were the first human I interacted with concerning Squad 19's network. I have been with you and the squad for years, Lieutenant, and have guided you all to the people you had become. Because of this, I guess you could say I am- I am quite fond of you."

Too much.

Too _much_.

"You're making me blush." It's a joke but the words sound hollow to my ears.

"I am not joking. Your qualities have grown during my time with you. I respect your decision making skills and your ability to empathize with those with whom you share weakness. There is a reason I suggested you as squad leader to your commanding officers."

I don't respond. I can't past the thickness in my throat.

Too much too late.

"So you can understand why I am," he pauses, searching for a word, "gratified to hear that I bring you comfort with my presence."

I punch out a short laugh and it sounds as if it is bubbling up through tar.

"For a heap of wires you're not too bad." My voice scrapes on the way out, the light of the distant stars beyond the cockpit window blur and sparkle and I know _why_ so I close my eyes against it. "Thanks, M.A.R.C.O."

"Anything for you, Lieutenant."

 

***

 

"4th of September, Year 3875. Last audio data from Ship 1 of Squad 19, ISF Kepler Star Fighter Division. Pilot Officer Mikasa Ackerman. Call sign: Red. 21:04."

At first there is nothing but a soft groan of frustration. Then a click of an button and Mikasa's voice comes over the speakers, smooth and low and calming, like the comforting weight of a heavy blanket.

_"Eren, please watch where you're going."_

Despite the muscles in my face feeling like melting candle wax, my lips twitch at her familiar admonishing tone.

 _"Mikasa, calm down. I know what I'm doing. I_ am _a certified pilot_."

 _"Barely_."

The chuckle is soft and unexpected. I feel it in my chest, bubbling up, before I realize what it is and I'm suddenly nauseous, afraid I'm going to vomit.

 _"You're supposed to use call signs in the air, guys."_ A third voice, male and reprimanding, comes through Mikasa's speakers.

 _"There's no air in space, smartass."_ Popping up to again, Eren addresses the new voice.

_"It's a figure of speech."_

_"Whatever, Armin. Or should I say, Hokey Pokey_ , _"_ Eren teases.

" _Roger that, Firecracker,"_  Armin snarks.

" _Boys, we have a job to do,_ " Mikasa reminds them and I can't help but close my eyes as the wash of images over takes me. My second in command, my inspiration. We would never have made it to graduation without Mikasa. And now...

" _Exactly what I'm trying to do, Red,"_ Eren retorts. _"I followed Ice Queen over here because-_ "

" _Mayday, mayday!"_ Armin's voice, tremulous and ragged. _"Someone-_ "

" _Armin?!"_

" _I can't- my controls, they- I-_ "

" _Armin, hold on, I'm coming to get you!"_ Eren assures.

" _Firecracker, stop! Eren!"_

_"Red, calm down, I got this!"_

_"Eren! Armin!"_ She lets out a terrified, frustrated huff. " _Chariot, come in, Chariot. This is Red. Hokey Pokey's called in mayday. Come in, Chariot!_ "

" _Chariot's communications are currently offline,_ " M.A.R.C.O. tells Mikasa in the recording.

" _Shit!_ " She hisses, the sound of her star fighter veering sharply.

 _"Officer Ackerman,"_ M.A.R.C.O.'s mechanized words are tinged with equal parts sternness and worry, _"please follow protocol and continue trying to contact commanding officers_."

" _Mikasa! Stop, I- ARMIN!_ Fuck!" Eren curses over her radio. Mikasa ignores the both of them.

_"Officer Ackerman-!"_

_"EREN! No! You_ have _to live, I won't, I_ won't _let you die!_ _Dammit_!!"

Her yell is that of a warrior racing into battle, adrenaline and anger and determination, something primal and fierce to match the roar of her fighter engine.

" _Mika-"_

He doesn't even finish her name before there is nothing but static.

"End of audio."

 

***

 

"4th of September, Year 3875. Last audio data from Ship 3 of Squad 19, ISF Kepler Star Fighter Division. Pilot Officer Eren " _Firecracker_ " Jaeger. 21:05."

Most of Eren's audio is the same as Mikasa's, overlapping with what I'd heard from her end. Except on Eren's record, it ends with him screaming, a cascade of her name, and Armin's mixed with fierce promised whispers of a future they will never get to see.

Eventually another brave, wild yell like that of his sister's and Armin's panicked shouts cut out with the end of Eren's file.

I place my head in my hands.

 

***

 

"I don't understand." The broken fragments of the comm records of my squad echo in my mind. It is like I am looking at the softly stirring surface of the water trying to understand the complicated movements of whatever I cannot see beneath it.

"Understand what, Lieutenant?" M.A.R.C.O. asks.

"What happened," I reply darkly. I am standing now, hands on the control panel, head hanging as I lean over it.

"And you feel you need to?"

"Yes!" The word is an arrow, straight and rigid and unrelenting as it leaves my lips.

"May I ask why?" That question again. I don't reply, the answer burning at the back of my tongue. "Why not just ask me to tell you the events of their last moments instead of listening to the audio? Is it because you need to hear for yourself? To know if it was your fault?"

My head snaps up, glaring at the light.

"It wasn't," I hiss.

"But you are afraid it might be."

I feel the tendon of in my jaw flex as I clench my teeth, huffing out a breath through my nose. The blackness of my cockpit and the reflected blackness outside of it reminds me that I shouldn't be mad at M.A.R.C.O. I shouldn't be mad at anyone. What good will that do me now?

"I just want to understand."

The seat creaks as I flop back down, my head back, staring at the ridges and pattern of the ceiling speaker.

"Do you think it hurts?" I ask lazily.

"Do I think what hurts?"

"Dying."

"You are asking a computer about death again, Lieutenant."

I snort.

"Never mind."

"If you are asking about objective pain levels of different methods of death, I am well informed." I make a face but he continues. "However, if you are asking my subjective speculation, I'm afraid to say I have nothing to tell you."

"So you're not afraid of death?"

"You seem to be, again, working under the assumption that I will experience "death.""

"But doesn't the idea of... not existing upset you?"

"I was brought into existence with the knowledge that it would cease eventually. That is the nature of sentience, correct?"

I shake my head in disbelief. "God, what must it be like to be an AI?"

"What must it be like to be an organic life form?" he shoots back and I glare at the intercom again.

There is another pause, a lull in which the distant rumble of the vacuum of space seems to rise. I stare out the window.

"Hey, you said you could tell me which ways are more and less painful to die, right?"

A beat of hesitation. "I did."

"So which is less painful? Suffocation or exposure to space."

"Lieutenant-"

"I asked a question, M.A.R.C.O."

"If you want my honest answer-"

"I do."

"If you were to die from lack of oxygen here in the ship, it would take, judging by the volume of the ship's interior and your physical information, approximately twenty minutes for you to breath all the remaining oxygen from the air once the life support stops producing new air. Your blood would fill will carbon dioxide. The process would be extremely painful. After another few minutes you would lose consciousness and then death would follow."

My hands are shaking, my lungs seeming to panic at the words and I can't control my breathing suddenly.

When M.A.R.C.O. speaks again, his voice is timid, seeming to use the formal language as a cover rather than anything else.

"However, in the vacuum of space, the gas exchange in the lungs would continue until all gases, including oxygen, would be gone from the bloodstream. After 9 to 12 seconds, the deoxygenated blood would reach your brain and you would lose consciousness. Death would follow after two minutes of exposure."

 _9-12 seconds_.

To simply float, weightless, naked before the cosmos for a few seconds and then just fall asleep.

"How long will the ship have enough power to open the airlock?"

"Two hours," M.A.R.C.O. responds. "But, Lieutenant-"

"Tell me when we're getting close, okay?"

"I-"

"Please!" I bark the word.

"I will," M.A.R.C.O. assures. "It is not my place to judge your manner of death in this situation."

"You don't think less of me?"

"Why would I think less of you for choosing for yourself? If it means you die in less pain and more quickly, if it means you do not suffer I do not see why you shouldn't."

"Then why-?"

"I wanted to tell you that you did your best, Lieutenant." The words are rushed, as if he expects me to interrupt him again. "With everything you had. You did amazingly well. I know you felt you failed today trying to prove something but, to me, you proved yourself a long time ago. I only have a little under two hours left to spend with you so I would like to end them without regrets."

"Regrets." The word comes out around an incredulous laugh. "I am seventeen years old and never made it out of my system. I have two hours left to live and a handful of my squad mate's final moments left to listen through and I am so _damn angry_ about everything we lost today so don't talk to me about regrets."

"I am not arguing the tragedy of your eventual death and the others, Lieutenant. They were my squad too. And in playing back their final moments to you I am having to listen to them twice. I may be an AI, but you are not the only one aboard this ship grieving."

I blink in surprise, taken aback, my anger evaporating for the moment. "M.A.R.C.O...."

"The fact that one of my squad does not have to die painfully by explosion or lacerations today, suffering until their final breath will bring me some small measure of comfort. And telling you my true thoughts about you before we both die, cease to exist―whatever manner you wish to speak about it in―will help me make peace with that."

It starts as an itch between my ribs, slowly unfolding up and out like the extending wings of a swan, ticking up my throat and before I know it I am laughing, loud and long, the sound reverberating from deep within my chest.

I am laughing. It hurts and feels like the most necessary thing in the world simultaneously and I'm not sure if I am crying as well because it is so overwhelming.

All at once, anger and sadness and regret and nostalgia and love and adoration and longing―every emotion I have a word to name all clamber within me for attention and space until I am full to bursting with such feeling and confusion that I don't know what way is up.

Well, there isn't supposed to be an up in space anyway, I guess.

"In that case," I tell him after a moment, still gasping, "there's no AI I'd have rather had aboard my ships these past years, M.A.R.C.O. And no AI I'd be more happy to spend my last few hours with."

It may just be my imagination, but I think the light above the intercom flickers then, ever so slightly.

"It's been my pleasure."

 

***

 

"4th of September, Year 3875. Last audio data from Ship 5 of Squad 19, ISF Kepler Star Fighter Division. Pilot Officer Armin Arlert. Call sign: Hokey Pokey. 21:06."

The minute the audio starts playing I clap my hands over my ears. My eyes are so wide it hurts my face. I feel tears leaking free again and my mouth is open in a silent, horrified protest.

It is nothing but Armin. Screaming.

Screaming wordlessly, screaming Eren's name, Mikasa's, mine, shrieks forming into horrified self damnation, words so awful and terrible they seem to rip past my covered ears, slicing through my fingers like daggers

 _"Officer Arlert!_ " I hear M.A.R.C.O., voice uncharacteristically frantic, trying to get his attention, but it does nothing.

"TURN IT OFF!" I bellow, curling in on myself, my chest pressed to my knees, hands pressed so tightly over my ears I can feel my cheekbones digging into those of my hand, grating like the horrible sounds Armin's making through the speaker.

"Audio stopped at twenty five seconds out of one minute and thirty seconds," M.A.R.C.O. announces, voice muffled through my hands. "I am so sorry, Lieutenant."

"No more," I whimper. "I- I can't, if it's all like that, I- _can't_ -"

"You don't have to listen to the rest of Officer Arlert's audio. It's all right."

My hands slowly lower to my knees, my head hanging loose between them.

"One hour and thirty five minutes," he adds softly.

I don't reply.

 

***

 

"How long do we have?" When it comes M.A.R.C.O.'s answer is a beat late.

"Ships 2, 6, 7, and 9 are still currently experiencing-"

"I meant for the air," I interrupt and the words hang for a moment. M.A.R.C.O. is quiet before two short beeps precede his answer.

"Forty five minutes remaining." A knot in my chest tightens.

"Will we have time to finish downloading and hear the data?"

"Lieutenant I-"

"I asked if we'll have time!" I shout, suddenly too loud in the small cockpit. It seems to ring in the dark space, reverberating my grief and fear off the dead plastic buttons and metal handles. "I just-" I swallow, barely whispering now when I speak. "I just need to know if we'll get to them all."

"Ships 2, 6, 7, and 9 have failed transmission. The data has been lost."

I do not realize my fists are clenched so hard my nails are biting into the skin of my palms until I feel something warm drip past my knuckles.

"Lieutenant?"

The grief comes like accelerating your star fighter to 3Gs. It is heavy and suffocating and it sticks you to the spot you are in when it hits you.

I can't breathe.

I can't _breathe_.

"Lieutenant?"

I'm drowning, a current, a swell of water dragging me under and I can feel my chest heaving but I feel no replacement of air. _He said I had forty five minutes, not like this, not like_ _this,_ please-

" _Jean!_ " M.A.R.C.O.'s voice is a clear beam of light through the surging shadows of my mind. "Breathe."

And suddenly the breath comes whooshing out of me in a broken, ragged sob. I am gasping in air, sudden tears spilling two, three at a time, rolling down my cheeks.

There is nothing wrong with the air yet.

I am slamming my fists on the control panel, shrieking words I don't understand, the sharp corners of plastic and metal bruising and cutting into the skin of my knuckles but I barely feel it through the torrent inside me.

I don't hear M.A.R.C.O. It could be that he's speaking to me and I just am not listening, but I'm pretty sure he stays silent as I feel my muscles clenching and unclenching, my hands shaking violently as I punch the control panel over and over, plastic cracking under my knuckles, words dissolving into horrible, grating, shrieking sobs that rip themselves from my chest like spirits violently exorcized.

The storm suddenly evaporates, the edgy acidity draining quickly from my limbs and I simply stand there heaving, my fingers and hands still shaking, the rest of me trembling. Hot tears are still spilling silently down my cheeks, down over my jaw, sliding over my neck.

"I won't ever know." When I finally speak, I whisper, leaving my lips parted in horrified shock. "I'm going to die in less than an hour and I won't ever _know_."

"Most humans don't about most things." M.A.R.C.O.'s voice is small when it comes, soft, familiar. I tilt my head up to the intercom, staring as if dazed. The light there blurs around the edges, a fuzzy halo fizzing through the filter of my tears. "If that is any comfort."

I lower my gaze, eyes still wet, feeling hollow as if someone has come and scooped out my insides. I feel drained and exhausted, like the black slouch of stretching nothingness between pinpricks of shining stars.

I stare for what feels like forever, watching the nothing of space pass by my dead ship while the back of my mind dances with the half-second captured moments of memory. Of these brave, _brave_  people that fought with me and lived with me and lost and worked and loved with me.

And it's then that it occurs to me.

The gravity of it knocks the air from my lungs when it solidifies. A simple truth, I suppose, in the end, but no less powerful.

The truth that comes to me then, is that no matter how much you want to keep diving back into the river, there are some bones you will never find, some pieces of your loved ones lost to the abyss and the rushing water of time and space.

I will never know the whole story of what happened to my squad. I will never know exactly why they died or hear many of their last words. I do not know for what final personal reasons they gave up their lives, what cause or friend or love their sacrificed themselves for.

I sob again, softly this time, arms crossed over my chest, clutching at the fabric of my flight suit with shaking fingers as if I can hold myself together this way. As if the lone strength of my arms and the curl of my body in on itself is enough to grasp it away from the thundering sucking vacuum of the abyss that will soon claim it too.

But, in the end, that is not my story to know, I realize. Caring for someone, no matter how deeply, does not give you any special rights or privileges when it comes to omniscience or coherence or closure. I am a small drifting speck out here, surviving past them for a only few stretching hours and I am not entitled to know anything about the nature of their lives or deaths.

It is the kind of truth that sinks onto your chest like a suffocating weight, is simply _unbearable,_ but in the end you can do nothing _but_ bear it.

Because sometimes the real stories are not those we consider as such. Sometimes the real stories are not about those who die but those who survive them, who mourn the dead, who collect bones from river beds, who love and grieve so fiercely the heavens cannot help but notice.

Some stories are about those we leave behind when we go, as they should be. They are about not the simplicity of heroic climax and fatal sacrifice, but of the slow, complicated monotony of grief and mourning and the slog of life after loss for however long that may be.

I think maybe that's the true meaning of the story of Cygnus.

Because that, too, is worth celebrating. That, too, deserves to shine in the patterns of the cosmos.

Because sometimes the hardest thing is living when others do not, knowing you will never understand why.

 

***

 

"Are you sure about this?" M.A.R.C.O. asks.

The distant stars sparkle beyond the cockpit window, glittering like the spray above a rushing river in the heat of summer.

I used to think it was beautiful when I was younger. It was hope, a promise of something out there for me. Somewhere along the way it became a terrifying yawning maw, waiting to swallow me whole.

But in the end maybe I do still think it's beautiful, after all.

If you think something terrifying and deadly―that makes you feel like your life was a grain of sand in a desert storm, that makes you so scared you want to vomit, that strips away your perceptions of what it means to live and die and be survived by―can still be beautiful.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

The void of space, like me and my squad and M.A.R.C.O., is vast and does not fall neatly like pieces into a puzzle. We play many roles to many people and feel such conflicting, aching things. We mourn others as we wait to die and it does not make sense.

So, yes. Maybe the void of space can be all those things at once and still be considered beautiful.

"For what it's worth, you were a wonderful leader, Jean. I am quite proud to have been your AI system."

There are tears, hot and wet, burning when I blink.

I think of the story of Cygnus, of Phaethon rocketing down from the heavens, smitten by Zeus for his incompetence, of the way he'd gone diving for days in search of his brother's bones just to find closure. To put him to rest.

Maybe the roles are not as definite as I like to imagine. I did my diving and sifting through the river bed to put back together the pieces of my friend's deaths to no avail.

"Hey, M.A.R.C.O.?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

I was Cygnus today, but I was also foolish, overeager Phaethon, desperate to prove myself able to handle a chance to hold the reigns, to carry the weight of hope and the future and the sun to no avail. Haven't we all, at some point, wanted to prove that we too can burn with the ferocity and fearlessness of the sun, despite the cost?

But no one will search through the sprawling abyss for my bones. All of my comrades are dead and gone, scattered away through space with the wreckage of their ships, flesh and bone and plastic and metal alike in the unrelenting march of time and dissolution of all that had come together.

No one left to mourn the inexplicable senselessness of my death.

"Yes? What is it?"

But that's not quite true, I think. The small light still glows above the intercom softly, comfortingly.

"You won't turn off, right?" My voice is a tremulous waver, a fragile, small thing in the stagnant, stale air. "Until I push the button?"

"I will be right here with you. Until the end."

I guess you can be both the mourning and the mourned.

Reaching out my arm, my burning sweating palm comes to hover over the airlock button, trembling ever so slightly. I revel in the beat of my heart, the blood hot and racing in my veins, the way the light from the distant stars glitters wildly through the prisms of my tears, so far away.

"So long." My voice cracks and chokes on the words as they exit.

Such small words in the breadth of it all.

I take one last look out the cockpit window, to the stretches of forever outside my ship I never got to see, terrifying and beautiful all at once.

"I will miss you, Jean."

I close my eyes and feel the wet brush of eyelashes against my cheek―feather tips of a swan emerging from water.

One last tear slips free, hot and burning like the millions of distant stars in the darkness, and I press the button.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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